TEHRAN – Iran announced on Tuesday that it will unveil a new, advanced kind of centrifuge on April 10 in the latest move to rachet up nuclear activities as diplomats from Iran and 5+1 nations gather in Vienna to discuss ways to revive a 2015 nuclear deal.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said, “This year, on the anniversary of Iran achieving peaceful nuclear energy on April 10, 133 achievements and breakthroughs in the nuclear industry will be unveiled in the Saadabad complex.”

One of the advances in the field of nuclear enrichment is the beginning of the mechanical test of IR-9 centrifuge, which has the capacity of 50 SWUs (separative work units), he continued. 

He pointed out that this machine is one of the most important completely indigenous centrifuges in Iran, which manufactures and operates with new standard methods.

According to an anonymous official from the AEOI, the advanced IR-9 centrifuges have a capacity of 40-50 SWUs, which are “practically twice the capacity of IR-8 centrifuges.”

The official who spoke with the local newspaper Khorassan on the condition of anonymity in 2019, said the capacity of IR-9 centrifuges is “50 times more than the IR-1 centrifuges currently being used at Natanz.”

SM/PA